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, rocker pat benatar and "mrs. brady" herself florence henderson. it's the behar bunch. >> only on current tv. >> jennifer: this week certain republicans gave their own party a bad name, even more than usual. listen to these three examples. >> well, i think when you have somebody of your own race that you are proud of being president of the united states i applaud

colin for standing with him. >> i struggled with it for a long time, but i came to realize that life is a gift from god, and even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape it is something that god intended to happen. >> if barack obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and if he gives his pass port applications and records, i will give to a charity of his choice a check, immediately, for $5 million. >> jennifer: i'm just saying. you know what really bugs me about the comments in the context of the presidential race? these guys are all tightly connected to mitt romney. john sununu is an active romney surrogate as he basically says that colin powell endorsed

president obama because he is black. donald trump, you know he has been doing robo calls and endorsements for mitt romney. despite the fact that these guys are supporters and allies mitt romney has not personally refuted a single one of their offensive statements. he has actually been running from the media, hoping hoping it all dies down please go away. he could certainly learn a thing, mitt romney could, about being courageous from john mccain. remember in 2008 when john mccain stood up to the people who thought president obama administration was a muslim. >> no, man.

he is not. thank you. thank you. [ applause ] >> jennifer: john mccain earned a lot of respect for standing up and being honest. mitt romney remains silent. silence in the face of these kind of comments is unacceptable. there's a saying that goes not to speak is to speak. not to act is to act. joining me from washington to discuss the republican's race to the bottom is democratic strategist and syndicated columnist karl frisch, and coming to us from boston is charlie pierce, contributing editor of "esquire" magazine. both of you gentlemen welcome back inside "the war room." >> good evening, governor. >> hello, governor. how are you? >> jennifer: i am great. charlie let me start with you. how it is that mitt romney can continue to affiliation himself with people who make inane comments like those.

>> first of all the jesuate fathers thought me [ inaudible ] he is silent gives consent. why has he gotten away with it -- >> jennifer: why hasn't he said anything at all. >> because he doesn't have to. he has gotten away with everything else. i wish i had a nickel for every pundit who told me last february, oh, he has got to release the tax returns. guess what he hasn't released the tax returns and he is not going to do the next ten days. they telegraph the etch-a-sketch punch six months ago. they said he was going to start lying. and he started right on schedule. and he has gotten away with it.

so why wouldn't he get away with chloroforming the crypt keeper and bringing john sununu back. [ laughter ] >> jennifer: i don't know that you can top that karl so i'm going to flip the conversation for a second because the president has been making himself available. >> right. >> jennifer: and one of the things he did today was he went to an interview with mtv. and i want you to listen to what the president said today about gay marriage. >> obama: for us to try to legislate federally into this area is probably the wrong way to go. >> jennifer: now there were some on the left who were critical of that -- of those statements. do you think -- how do you think that is going to play with the gay democrats who have been really supportive of the president. >> i don't think they will be too happy about it. but what is their choice? this is a president who supports

marriage equality, and the initiatives that are going to bring marriage equality to states, and the department of justice has been remarkable in the fight to overturn doma so i think he's on the right side here, even if he is not moving quite quickly enough. it is a much better choice than mitt romney who held secret meetings with gay republicans at a farm in virginia, and it was not a closet in the superbs, where he apparently promised a few things here and there to get their endorsement. and i have no doubt in my head that lgbt people will help give the president the boost he needs to get reelected and they'll have a lot to ask from him. >> jennifer: so he ran as far away to a rural farm so no

cameras could see him in connection with the gays he was meeting with? >> everything we have talked about tonight has been about romney preserving his base support. because his entire candidacy has been telegraphed around the worry that the base will fall away. >> jennifer: you have just outed him, though my friend. >> well, it will take a lot more than me. [ laughter ] >> jennifer: charlie on this mtv interview, at another point, president obama was asked about climate change, and he had this to say. >> we're not moving as fast as we need to, and this is an issue that future generations, mtv viewers are going to have to be dealing with, even more than the older generation is. >> jennifer: to me that is very interesting. do you think that environmentalists might see a general statement like that as

just kicking the can down the road? >> i think environmentalists saw him kicking the can down the road by the fact that we had four debates and climate change didn't come up once. in the foreign policy debate teacher's unions and the national debt got more at attention that climate change did. and this week they have a result of climate change blowing right up their shorts on the east coast. so future historians assuming they are any, are going to look at this time in history and think we're all out of our minds. >> charlie the hurricane is coming for that reason when we all know that it is because governor romney capitlated at a

farm in virginia. [ laughter ] >> jennifer: stay right there. we'll tell you what hurricane sandy could mean for the election. plus believe it or not, there was a time when people watching tv would shout, hey, everyone come quick, it's a political ad. polling place. make sure that voting is your highest priority on election day. besides, you can always dvr my show. you really cant' dvr the future of the country. to help you make informed decisions, watch current tv's politically direct lineup. only on current tv. so vote and vote smart.

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>> read my lips. ♪ >> jennifer: you are back inside "the war room." i'm jennifer granholm. if you feel like there has been a lot more presidential campaign tv commercials this year than there was in 2008, you would be right. four years ago, about 637,000 adsed a aired at this point in the race. this year, that number has sky rock setted to 915,000 commercials, a 44% increase. unbelievable. enough to make you long for the days when political tv ads were a novelty. well, tonight in part two of our eight-part series the selling of the presidents. barry lank takes us back to when it all began.

>> it was 1952 television was the big new thing. >> eisenhower answers america. >> dwight eisenhower's team lead the way to bring the candidate right into america's living rooms. >> help me put the lid on crazy government spending. >> the ads were very effective. they made more than 40 eisenhower america spots. >> the camera in eisenhower was looking up to him, and the voters voters -- he was looking down a bit.

adley stevens felt it was not proper to run the ads. >> eisenhower won by a landslide. and then stevens was running in his own television ads. >> jennifer: those were the days. now i'm joined again by charlie pierce and karl frisch. karl i want to read you this about campaign tv ads. do you agree? >> yes. [ laughter ] >> i think anybody who has ever been a part of making television commercials can tell you that.

and it's particularly true when budgets of money is being spent. let's say you are running for congress. it's great to have millions of dollars, and have millions of dollars spent on your behalf but at a certain point, all of the ads in the world can't get you elected. you can look at examples all over the country of wealthy people who have poured tens of millions of dollars in their own candidacy, and gone on to lose. >> jennifer: and charlie, 2 billion or whatever the number % is now that is being spent on these ads. they were saying in ohio there have been so many ads that have been run that you could watch straight 24 hours a day for 80 days, and that would be the

amount of time you would have to spend in front of the tv right. >> well, you can also drive penny nails into your eyeballs with a pal peen hammer but i wouldn't recommend it. look i live in massachusetts i don't even know this president. >> jennifer: i'm going to talk to you about that in one second. but let me ask you about the storm. charlie everybody is talking about the frankenstorm how might that affect the election? i would love both of your take on that? >> i think, number 1 it is going to blow up the last week of the campaign. mitt romney has already canceled a rally in virginia beach. in terms of the presidential race, it will material effect virginia north carolina and new

hampshire. everything else is pretty blue in the eye of this storm but since the election is going to be contained within what i call the margin of shicanary, who can tell. >> jennifer: go ahead, karl. >> i don't think tagg owns the voting machines in those states, though. i think whenever you have got inclement weather it's a certain, especially for democrats who are relying heavily on early voting in these states. so people need to get to the polls before it hits land here. this isn't the first time that bad weather has hit near or around an election, and if it's not happening on election day, i think it's probably a distraction for a couple of days, and then we'll get on with the business of turning out the vote. >> if i show up to vote, and jim

cantor is standing in my polling place. i'm out of there. [ laughter ] >> jennifer: some people have suggested that the hurricane could be sort of an october surprise that nobody intended of course. but karl if the hurricane isn't the october surprise there was an eye-opening event yesterday. there was a group of 70 ceos of the country's biggest companies, all who signed on to a plan that called for an balanced approach to solve the deficit, and that balanced approach that all of these ceos signed on to included revenues. do you think their clout could actually move compromise even in the people who signed pledges never to raise revenue? >> no. >> jennifer: that's so depressing. >> call me a cynic. i'm just a realist.

the truth is the patriotic millionaires these conservative economies, liberal economists you can look everything to find people to say you need an balanced approach thank colludes tax increases and cuts in spending, but fortunately you have a group of people in washington and mitt romney who have forsaken their oath to the constitution in favor of a blood oath they signed for grover norquist. >> jennifer: and charlie i want to make sure the senate remains in democratic hands. you are in a key state, you have written about elizabeth warren and scott brown give us a quick update. >> she has a small working margin right now in most polls. she is going to have to run the race all the way to the wire

though. he has parts of the state where he is still very popular. he had three things going for him, and one of the biggest things was that people liked him. he is running a very unlikable campaign. and he has committed unforced error after unforced error, and just said we discover the national right to life committee funneled $45,000 into his campaign. >> jennifer: wow. >> i think she is in good shape, but she will be have to be a good candidate all the way into election day. >> jennifer: wow. thank you guys so much for joining us inside "the war room," karl frisch charlie pierce. up next there is nothing like having a first-hand experience and our next guest has been on the front lines of one of the most important stories of the 2012 campaign.

that's next in a story you'll only find on "the war room."

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>> jennifer: this past week foreign policy presidential debate is not going to be the last that we hear before the election about the killings of the united states ambassador to libya, christopher stevens and other americans. the republicans have not let up on this issue. and the latest comes from fox news today which cited unnamed sources saying cia sources were told stand down. and here is the reaction from the fox panel on "the five." >> this administration is becoming the world's largest clown car with this many jack asses that could run tours of the grand canyon.

>> i want to know if leon panetta was the one that said standown. >> did he really need an intelligence assessment to know that a post gadhafi situation wasn't dangerous. >> jennifer: joining us now is ethan chorin. in 2004 ethan was one of the first american diplomats to reestablish relations with tiply. his latest book "exit the colonel: the hidden history of the libyan revolution" was released this week. welcome inside "the war room." >> thanks for having me. >> jennifer: you have such an intense experience in libya, i'm wondering what is the biggest misconception about libya that you have heard in this election? >> i think part of the problem

is that libya has been so unknown for so long that there's a huge void in to which people are projecting all kinds of thoughts and emotions, and basically, i think the obama -- the way that the obama administration has handled libya has been nothing short of brilliant. >> jennifer: why do you say that? >> he dared back in 2009 with the new beginning speech in cairo, to change the status quo. he was probably surprised to be called on that so quickly, but libya was practically the one place in the region in which an intervention could be successful. >> jennifer: libya obviously the benghazi issue was the subject on "the five" panel. but you think the overall trajectory has been good.

do you think that libya itself has been political fodder improperly in this election? >> of course. any killing of a u.s. ambassador is going to bed to nel this kind of season. but he believed in libya and the cause in which he risked his life, avenue the dangers, and the libbian people loved him for it. i was in benghazi during the attack, and the outpouring of emotion on the part of the libbians was palpable. >> jennifer: and he actually did resist some of the overintrusive security measures so he could be more connected; is that try? >> he had several roles before the ambassadorship and his hallmark was to go out and meet

the people and talk about their concerns. >> jennifer: what surprised you most about your research in the start of the revolution? >> well, there are a whole range of things that surprised me. i had an inkling of this having been posted there for two years, but one was the way the bush administration -- the narratives that were constructed to establish the [ inaudible ] with libya. >> jennifer: tell me. >> essentially the idea that gadhafi was so scared by the image of saadam hussein pulled from a spider hole that he coughed up weapons of mass destruction -- >> jennifer: and that was not true? were you ever in contact with gadhafi? >> i had -- i was sent to listen

to his speeches. there were lots of antics there. one image that sticks in my mind is his secretary -- his protocol person, wielding a whip with the audience, and if people weren't jumping up with great pleasure with what he said, the guy would come and whack them on the back. that is simply stage craft, but he used it to disarm people and confuse, and the west didn't quite figure it out in time. >> jennifer: you have done a very extensive and first-hand view of the situation. "exit the colonel: the hidden history of the libyan revolution." ethan chorin, author. thank you so much for joining us inside "the war room." >> thanks for having me. >> jennifer: coming up brett ehrlich will put the wraps on this week and get you ready for next. you are watching "the war room." it's only on current tv.

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>>i jump out of my skin at people when i'm upset. they're doing this this corruption based on corruption based on corruption. >>that's an understatement, eliot. >> jennifer: from meatloaf to done at trump, quite a few

people lost their minds this week, but now we turn to brett ehrlich. shhhh, brett's talking now. >> well, there are eleven days to the election, and i hate to see how crazy they will be given how bonkers this week has been. donald trump offered to give $5 million to charity if obama would turn over what he says are low college transcript rate. and now know all of the things that i thought this guy would go to jail for, it was not tax revagus. >> and here is a claimed video of president obama's birth in

kenya. is that this real? it makes the president the first baby to have a birth weight of over 23 pounds. that's a big baby. and then mitt romney appears in defiance ohio. ♪ >> well there you have it meatloaf endorsing romney and so does double cheeseburger. i'm done talking now. ♪ >> jennifer: thanks for joining us here on "the war room," everybody. have a great night, and a wonderful weekend. please make sure you get out and vote if you are in an early voting state, and go tigers. ♪ minute but then it feels grate. good night everybody.